Bike on bike action

I went away two weekends ago weekend (I was playing at the Dubbo Jazz Festival, which was lots of fun), so went to the airport directly from work on Friday night. This meant my bike stayed in the office all weekend. I of course road to work on Monday on a different machine, and then ended up with two bikes at work.

This continued for a whole week; I rotated the bikes around (including having a fun day where I rode the fixie to work, then later in the day rode the tourer to North Ryde and back for a meeting, commuted home on the fixie and then went shopping on the radish), but it was still all very unsatisfactory. At some point I was going to have to get to work on public transport in order to ride home on the bike that remained in the office – either making for a horrendous morning commute, or taking up a chunk of valuable Baby Chillikebab time at the weekend. Surely there was another solution?

Then it came to me. Ride the folder to work, ride home on the tourer (which by this time was back at the office), then the next day, take the Radish – and strap the folder to the back of it for the ride home. Excellent! Where there’s a bike there’s a way…

So that’s the plan I put into action on Monday. I wheeled the folder out of the shed, dusted it down (poor neglected thing!) and rode it in. Either it’s grown, or since I’ve been riding the Radish I’ve become more tolerant of small bikes, as it was less uncomfortable than I remember. It was actually kind of fun to ride, albeit hard work on the hills. Monday evening I rode home on the tourer (via an orchestra rehearsal in Crows Nest), and this morning took the Radish to work. Man, I really have to get the gears sorted on the Radish. They are horrific; they jump around all over the place. Another trip to the LBS may be in order. The gears on the folder are superb by comparison – and that’s a $200 bike from Aldi…

I ducked out of work at lunchtime, and bought a couple of tie-down straps and some bungy cords, and then come home-time folded up the folder and strapped it to the back of the Radish. It went on quite easily, although added a lot of weight – and width! I didn’t cut through the queues of traffic for fear of putting a large scrape along someone’s door, and that amount of weight fairly high up did make the bike a trifle unsteady. Not badly though; the Radish really does handle big loads with aplomb.

I got several comments from fellow commuters on the way home – one guy really seemed quite interested in the Radish. My stock line was an airy ‘Oh, I always carry a spare bike, in case the main one breaks down…’

So my list of things I have carried on the Radish is growing:
#1 Two weeks worth of shopping
#2 Trombone and associated bits and bobs
#3 Folding bicycle